Business leaders seek immigration changes

Almost three years after then Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff trumpeted government success in smoothing the legal path to U.S. citizenship, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined business leaders Wednesday in calling for a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants with scientific and technological expertise.

In a panel discussion entitled “Immigration and American Competitiveness: The Challenge Ahead,” speakers told an assembled group of business people and lobbyists that other countries are now able to retain talented scientists and engineers more effectively than the U.S. because of a broken immigration system, and that American lawmakers need to act quickly to fix the problem before the U.S. is outpaced by emerging economic powerhouses in Asia.

“We want legal immigration,” Chertoff said in an October 2008 speech. “As much as we want to discourage illegal immigration, we want to encourage legal immigration. Here I am delighted to say that the United States Citizen and Immigration Services has worked very hard to improve the business practices and to reduce the backlog.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who founded the financial business service Bloomberg, LP before becoming mayor, said quotas limiting the number of H1b work visas, which are good for three years, and green cards, which allow permanent residency in the U.S., issued to those seeking residency in the country are “arbitrary,” and “crazy.”

The number of H-1B visas issued each year is capped at 65,000, according to the Center for Immigration Policy.

“Our visa distribution should be more in line with our economic needs,” Bloomberg said, noting that less than 10 percent of visas are granted for business reasons, as opposed to the many issued to reunite separated families.

“That’s just terrible public policy,” Bloomberg said. “We should dramatically expand the number of green cards available to the best of the best.”

Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas J. Donohue said educated foreigners have a lot to bring to the table for American employers, and noted explosive growth among the Mexican and Latin American Economies in recent years.

“Our neighbors to the south are young,” Donohue said. “We are older, as a society.”

Donohue told attendees that the current system doesn’t allow top skilled professionals to remain in the U.S. indefinitely, leaving American businesses with one choice.

“We send the jobs to where they are,” Donohue said.

Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Department of Homeland Security, said the government is already working to communicate immigration requirements to business leaders seeking to bring in talent from overseas, and that his agency currently approves about 80 percent of business immigration applications.

Mayorkas said “controversial” and “divisive” talk about foreigners stealing American jobs makes having a realistic policy discussion difficult.

A comprehensive immigration reform bill that included some of these provisions died in a 2007 Senate vote, amid criticisms that it offered amnesty to illegal aliens, which that bill also included.

“Businesses should continue to advocate, continue to engage in the dialogue,” Mayorkas said.

Robin Paulino, Senior Counsel for Global Immigration at Microsoft, said the software giant finds a lack of qualified workers among Americans.

“Finding the right talent isn’t as simple as substituting one person for another,” Paulino said.

A spokesman U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, (R-TX), said this is a policy lawmakers should pursue.

“We need a smart immigration policy that brings in the best and brightest,” McCaul said.

A 2010 study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce predicted that the American labor force would have 3 million fewer skilled workers than jobs available by 2018.